


Two Hearts In Your Chest

by Hecate



Category: Top Gun
Genre: M/M, Yuletide, challenge:Yuletide 2007
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-12-25
Updated: 2007-12-25
Packaged: 2017-11-22 01:18:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/604226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hecate/pseuds/Hecate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You know that this can't end well.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Two Hearts In Your Chest

**Author's Note:**

  * For [little Alex](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=little+Alex).



> Thanks for the beta goes to Sandrine and Autiotalo.  
> Disclaimer: Not mine, no money made.

 

 

You fell from a tree on your third birthday, the wood beneath your feet splintering, gravity pulling you down. It felt like flying before the ground rushed up to meet you, and after you were released from the hospital, your left arm a broken wing, it was almost all you could remember. Flying for a split second and looking up from the ground, the pain still to come. You looked through the leaves above you, through the green and brown, and all you could see was the sky.

***

Maverick is almost happy for a year. He has Charlie and a job with Top Gun; he's in the air more often than not. He's almost happy.

He misses Goose.

He flies solo now, chases the new pilots in a Skyhawk with Jester and sometimes Viper on his side, ghosts in the air. He always wins. He becomes a living legend in Fightertown USA, and it should be enough. It almost is.

Then he gets shot down by a student for the first time, the sound of the missile lock announcing his defeat, and when he comes back to earth he has to force himself to congratulate the new pilot. Jester claps Maverick on the back later, smirks and says it had to happen at some point, and he can only nod.

He dreams of a war that night, a real air fight, jets dancing around him, his RIO screaming in his ear. He dreams of another missile lock, the feeling of being hit and ejecting, falling forever and knowing that he will be the only one alive once he and his RIO hit the ground. The next day he flies like he used to, leaving Jester to fend on his own while he loses himself in the sky.

Charlie leaves him a month after that, smiling sadly at him while she does a monologue of regrets and goodbyes, and he lets her go. He knows he should feel something but he can't; he's still flying every day, and Charlie never mattered before once he was back home between the earth and the universe.

Viper worries about him again and tells him stories about his father, about the hero he never knew. They want Maverick to be like him, he knows that, but he can't. He can't even think about his father - at least, not for too long. He already has a ghost haunting him, Goose's voice in his ear when he flies. He doesn't need a wingman made of other men's memories, too.

At some point, Carole starts to hate him, and it's the first thing that truly hits him after Goose died. She hates him because he's alive and Goose isn't, and living without him is harder than she could have known the first day after his death. She screams at him on the phone and never calls him again, and Maverick finally stops expecting an answer when he talks to Goose in his empty cockpit.

They call him back into active duty sometimes, he's one of their best pilots after all, and after every return he's grateful for his decision to stay with Top Gun. People don't die at the school, not after Goose. But out there, they do. Jets shot to pieces, falling and taking their pilots with them. Pilots floating down to earth, their bodies and parachutes an easy target for their enemies. He dreams of it like all pilots do, and he knows he's running away again. But it doesn't matter.

Iceman returns with him after one of those battles, almost pale enough to warrant his call sign because Slider got hurt and Slider is his RIO. Maverick understands, of course he does, and he stays silent on their flight back home. He wants to tell Iceman that it's just an injury, that Slider will heal, but he doesn't. Reassurance is not something Iceman needs.

Top Gun welcomes Iceman the way it welcomed Maverick, the return of a wayward son, and Iceman takes to teaching quickly. Their rivalry is reborn soon, both of them descending on the students like crazy hawks, making it about the two of them instead of the other pilots. If their life had been a movie, things would be different now. The last time they flew together would have changed everything, turned them into a team, and Maverick would truly have let Goose go when he threw his dog-tags into the ocean. But this is reality, and one flight never changed anything before.

Viper worries about them both now. Jester wears a constant frown, but it doesn't matter. Things are better again, now that Maverick has someone he can truly fight. And then, when Slider comes by for a visit and Maverick watches Iceman with his RIO, he has someone to hate, too. Because Slider is alive and Goose isn't and a part of Maverick blames Iceman for the accident that killed his best friend.

Things eventually explode, like they always do, and Maverick shoves Iceman against the wall of his room when the other man confronts him about his flying antics. There are curses and useless punches, accusations and insults, and then there are teeth clashing and lips meeting, kisses as rough as their argument.

Maverick fucks Iceman against the wall, rage and guilt in every movement, and when he comes he still sees red, swearing into Iceman's skin. He stumbles to his bed then, tired and empty already, and he doesn't say anything when Iceman follows him.

The sex wasn't a surprise, it never really was for Maverick, not with the women he met nor with the rare encounters with other men. But the morning after catches him off-guard: Iceman is still there, sleeping beside him, warm and alive and nothing like his call sign. Maverick remembers this sight until he's in the air again: Iceman the man to beat and his jet everything he needs to be free.

He doesn't expect it to happen again, but it does. Iceman comes to him at night, their nights a repetition of their flights, glances like missile locks, every moan drawn from the other another target blown out of the sky.

Still, there's more to it. There's the sun rising outside, the yellow light moving across Iceman's skin. There's Pete and Tom and slow kisses in the middle of the night when the sky is forgotten for seconds. There's love, fragile and shy, and Maverick wonders how long it will take until it breaks.

It's Viper who finds out about them, who walks into Maverick's room and finds them entangled on the bed. He stays silent and steps out of the room again, leaving them alone with a panic Maverick never felt before.

Viper could keep him from flying.

The commander calls them into his office later, looks at them with disappointment, and Maverick feels the ground beneath his feet giving in once again. This time, it doesn't feel like flying. It's just falling, dropping away from the sky, and for a moment he can't breathe. For a moment his life is over.

But Viper lets them off. He speaks of mistakes that shouldn't be repeated, of letting things go. Maverick understands what Viper means, knows that it means leaving Iceman behind. And he will, he tells himself, he will.

Iceman doesn't come that night, doesn't come the next. He's just a shadow in Maverick's life for some days, avoiding him as long as they're not flying, and Maverick is okay with that until he isn't. He misses Iceman, misses the way the other pilot kissed him. A bit like fighting, a bit like flying, and no one had kissed Maverick that way before. And Iceman won't stay at Top Gun forever. He's just waiting for Slider to be all right again because he won't fly with another RIO. Once Slider is back, Iceman will leave with him. Iceman will leave and Maverick won't have to make the decision for them.

This time it's Maverick who finds the other man and when Iceman opens the door of his room and looks at him, he's almost sure that Iceman won't let him in. Seconds later, Iceman has him against the wall and all thoughts of rejection, Viper and flying are forgotten.

In the morning, they come back. In the morning, the sky is bluer than Iceman's eyes could ever be.

Everything is almost all right as long as they let him fly. Because up there Goose is still alive and Maverick always wins even if he doesn't. Up there, he forgets. He forgets that he used to love Charlie, he forgets that he is falling for Iceman. Up there, falling is flying and nothing else matters until he sees another jet or hears air control. Then, he remembers.

***

You know that this can't end well. That you have to let go of something at some point, that you have to decide. You can't hide forever and they forgave you the first time, pretended it never happened. But they won't do it for a second time.

Sometimes, you tell Iceman that you love him, and you think he believes you. And you do. As long as you're on the ground, Iceman has all your attention, your adoration, your love. But once you leave the ground behind, once you're flying, Iceman stops to matter even when he flies beside you. When you're up there, you think you'll leave him soon.

Because all you can see is the sky.

 


End file.
